Q&A: Mike Bacon talks experiences, challenges with public health

ROCKFORD — Though the challenges have been many, Mike Bacon said he’s enjoyed “every minute” of his 43 years in public health service.

Bacon, 67, is retiring May 30 from his post as administrator of the Winnebago County Health Department. He started his career there in the lab, working up to the position of director of environmental health.

He left for 11 years to serve as administrator of the McHenry County Health Department and then returned to lead the Rockford-based department.

During his tenure, Bacon has supported efforts to secure more than $110 million in grant funding. Priorities have included tackling chronic diseases and improving maternal-child health and minority health, including the development of the Black Male Health Program.

The health department also opened a new office at the renovated 555 N. Court St. facility, an initiative that was actually the consolidation of three separate locations into the one facility.

Bacon sat down with the Register Star to discuss his retirement and the challenges ahead for the health department. No successor has been named for Bacon yet, but he will stick around for a bit after retirement to help the new administrator get acclimated.

Question: What made you decide to retire?

Answer: It’s really time for some fresh thinking. ... I think the challenges of today are really huge, system-change type issues. It’s trying to align with changes that have been developed through health reform and the Affordable Care Act opportunities to increase the contribution that health care brings to the table, in terms of the potential for health improvement by increased access to care.

Many of the contributing factors to good health lie outside our existing health system. They wind up being much more community oriented. So often, the choices that people make are really the choices they have to choose from. And in many of those cases, none of those choices are very healthy. And that’s the unfortunate part, and that’s where the community part of all of this comes in. Socioeconomic conditions are key underlying factors that relate to health and our environment in general, the integrity of our neighborhoods, the quality of our water supplies. The availability of foods and recreational areas, safe recreational areas, and so forth are all underpinnings of what creates additional opportunities for improved health in a community. So in other words, health is more contributed to by the family we’re born into, the neighborhoods we’re raised in, the schools we go to, the education we wind up receiving, the jobs we work at, and frankly, the more we recognize health that way, the more opportunities there are to improve it.

Q: What did you learn from working in McHenry County?

A: Their health status is a result of their socioeconomic standing, and it’s primarily a whole lot better than our community. So their profile is considerably different. But nevertheless, I think the concept that I’ve always had in mind is really the health of any community is no better than that segment of the community having the poorest outcomes. ... Improving the health of a community has to be a shared responsibility.

This is all about developing a culture of health. We don’t want to miss opportunities to change health for the better because it is so fundamental for the quality of life. The old saying goes that if you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything. And I think that is unfortunately the challenge we have as a community and being a community that’s sort of a microcosm of the state of Illinois. A less healthy community and a less healthy state is not going to be as competitive as a healthier state or a healthier community for those jobs. Employers are able to recognize the additional costs that go along with locating in a community with more health challenges, and that’s the cost of doing business. It’s no different than moving to a community with strong schools or strong (information technology) infrastructure, or the kind of transportation infrastructure that a given corporation needs. The most fundamental of all of those infrastructure things is your workforce and the health of that workforce.

Q: What are the challenges still to come for the health department?

A: Challenges going forward and where we are right now as a community working off the most recent community health needs assessment relate to the chronic disease epidemic that our nation faces and certainly our community faces. The startling part of that epidemic is that 75 percent of the major causes for this chronic disease epidemic of heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and chronic lower respiratory disease relate to preventable conditions. The conditions relate to the three-legged stool of getting fit, eating healthy and stopping smoking. That’s the magic formula. If we were more successful at that as a community, we could really change the health profile of our community.

I think there’s one more key ingredient, and that is improved birth outcomes. Early attachment postpartum is so crucial as a leverage point. That has been our priority as a department for a number of years, and that’s why we’ve been so aggressive in going after home-visiting money. The evidence around home visiting both in the prenatal period and the immediate postpartum period is so crucial. That level of intensity can help establish meaningful relationships with that mom and provide the support necessary for that mom to have a greater likelihood of a full-term birth and better likelihood that they’ll be more prepared to cope with that newborn’s needs. If we can succeed in that, we really can begin to have a much more robust younger population that is ready to learn. If we don’t get it right in the first couple of years, it becomes much more challenging, much more remedial in terms of the kinds of interventions that are necessary.

Along with those two categories of interventions ... the third one is: behavioral health-related and the need to do much more as a community to assure we have the kind of service infrastructure necessary to address challenges on the mental illness and substance abuse front that affect large portions of our population.